KANSAS CITY -- C.C. Sabathia knew people would speculate that he might be hurt, given his dismal performance in the early going this season.

If only they were right.

"The way I was pitching," Sabathia said with a smile, "I was wishing something was wrong. Giving up nine runs two starts in a row, I was hoping something was hurting. But that's not the case."

The only thing hurting was Sabathia's pride. But he and his teammates got a nice and needed dose of confidence Tuesday night. Sabathia pounded the zone, the Tribe bats pounded the ball and a shockingly easy 15-1 romp over the Royals was the result at Kauffman Stadium.

"We had it going in all areas of the game," said Casey Blake, who drove in six runs and fell a triple shy of the cycle. "And C.C. set the tone out there. He was C.C. tonight."

That's as fine a compliment as one can pay to the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, who had looked nothing like himself in his first four starts of the season.

But this was the Sabathia the Indians know and love. He was commanding the strike zone with his fastball, and he had particular success establishing himself on the inside part of the plate. And in a fine change of pace, he had his cutter and changeup working for him as well.

It all added up to six scoreless innings of work in which all the Royals mustered were four hits and a pair of walks.

Sabathia's only vice -- if you can call it that -- was striking out 11 batters, because that helped run his pitch count up to 102 and prevented him from throwing in the late innings.

"If you look at his numbers coming into this game, he didn't pitch like [them]," Royals designated hitter Billy Butler said. "Every time we face Sabathia, I think of him as being tough. I don't care what his ERA is coming in or if he's 0-3 or not. He's still one of the top lefties in the game, in my opinion."

On this night, Sabathia proved it, lowering that inflated ERA from 13.50 to 10.13 and earning that first, precious win.

"He was back to his old self," manager Eric Wedge said. "You could just tell from the first inning on -- he was in control of the ballgame."

Sabathia said the key was "staying tall" on the mound. The frustration of his first four outings was that he felt his delivery was sound, but he wasn't finishing pitches off and getting proper movement on them.

"He was back to his old self. You could just tell from the first inning on -- he was in control of the ballgame."

-- manager Eric Wedge, on C.C. Sabathia

"The delivery's there," he said. "It's just a matter of executing in the games."

By the same token, the Indians' offensive approach in recent days -- aside from Sunday's 2-1 clunker of a loss to the Twins -- has been what Wedge hopes to see, but the hits haven't always fallen.

In this game, they did. In fact, many of them fell over the wall, as the Indians battered Gil Meche and the Royals' bullpen.

Some fine situational hitting led to a run in the second and two more in the third. But the Indians really broke the game open in the fourth. They loaded the bases for Blake, who punched a grand slam over the left-field wall to make it 7-0. David Dellucci piled on one out later with a solo shot to right, and Meche was out of the ballgame.

The Indians didn't stop.

In the fifth, Blake doubled home one run and Grady Sizemore singled in another off Joel Peralta to make it 10-0. In the seventh, Jhonny Peralta cranked out a solo homer off Yasuhiko Yabuta and Blake added another RBI double to left.

By the eighth, when Franklin Gutierrez cleared the loaded bases with a two-out double, it was almost an embarrassment of riches for a Tribe team that had scored just five runs in three weekend games in the Metrodome.

"The last game against Detroit [last Thursday] and the first couple games in Minnesota -- even the game we got shut out -- I felt our at-bats were better," Wedge said. "We got back to that, and it obviously played out for us. The results are going to be there over the course of a season if you have that approach. As long as you put yourself in a position to have a good at-bat, good things are going to happen over time."

They happened over and over in this blowout win. But as Blake said, Sabathia led the way.

And with Jake Westbrook's fine '08 put on hold earlier in the day by his placement on the 15-day disabled list, the Indians are going to be counting on more of the same from Sabathia.

"The way [Westbrook's] been pitching, with him out, it's going to be tough," Sabathia said. "But I'm looking forward to trying to step up and being what I was last year."